Passage to Honolulu, continued

Sunday 17 June 2012
Lat:  04d 14m South  Long: 145d 16m West  254 NM south of the equator
Motoring, heading 000T at 5.2 kts
Cabin Temperature: 90 deg F  Humidity:  62%

By every account, this passage is supposed to be one of the quickest and more enjoyable.  So far, our experience doesn't seem to fit that mold.

Yesterday afternoon we reached a milestone of 2/3 of the distance to the equator and 1/4 the distance to Hawaii.  It was a fairly quick first leg, but the next 1/4 looks to be brutally slow.

The wind continued to die down yesterday afternoon and was down to 4 or 5 knots at sunset.  As we need to stretch 350 miles worth of fuel across a 600 mile wide convergence zone, we're trying to conserve fuel.  Conditions got lighter as the night progressed and on my midnight to 4:00 AM watch, we only made 8 miles under sail!  The wind was too light for the windvane, so we had to hand steer all night.

The wind outlook continues to be dismal for the next week, so we may have a few more 30 mile nights. At 0730 this morning, we finally gave up and started the engine.  The autopilot is broken again (4th time since leaving Seattle) so we also have to hand steer under power.  We may motor in the daytime just to have a little airflow through the boat and try to sail at night to save fuel.  We shall see.

We've go most of the ports open now, so things feel a bit cooler below deck even though the engine is putting off a lot of heat that we didn't have before.

We continue to drag a fishing line, but we were in danger of being passed by it in the night.  No self respecting tuna is going to strike a lure bobbing on the surface.